Food Connex provides freedom of choice…

For over 25 years Food Connex has specialized in providing the food industry with innovative system and software solutions. Our industry leading food distribution software and food processing software offerings include Cloud and Premise based applications allowing food distributors and processors to choose the best fit for their business.

Customize the solution that is right for you from integrated systems and software designed to specialized needs of the food industry whether you're a farm to table co-op that must automate to continue growing, a distributor/processor using QuickBooks that needs additional power to manage food products, or a large scale processor/distributor looking for a totally integrated ERP solution.

Manage selling relationships with Cloud based tools for salesperson and customer order entry.

Control inventory in real-time with Recipe and Cutting production using integrated scales and washdown ready plant floor workstations to relieve ingredients or primals and receive and label finished goods with with GS1-128 compliant barcodes.

Improve customer service by eliminating shipping and catch weight invoicing errors using SWAMI to Scan Weigh And Measure Instantly during order fulfillment and invoicing.

Two weeks ago when we talked about the pink slime debacle we advised our readers:

This is a great MARKET opportunity for all my "local" grinders to publicize "THIS PRODUCT DOES NOT CONTAIN PINK SLIME".

Since our story: retailers have pulled product, school lunch programs have modified their menus and the story has gone viral on Social media with millions of people on the Internet reacting to the news.

Two weeks ago when we talked about the pink slime debacle we advised our readers:

This is a great MARKET opportunity for all my "local" grinders to publicize "THIS PRODUCT DOES NOT CONTAIN PINK SLIME".

Since our story: retailers have pulled product, school lunch programs have modified their menus and the story has gone viral on Social media with millions of people on the Internet reacting to the news. One of our customers, Common Market of Philadelphia, took our advice and leveraged their specialty of Farm to Table with local vendors.

In these times differentiation and touting the positives of your product is one way to keep winning business and margins.

PETOSKEY — Each week, D. Schultz, owner of Tannery Creek Meat Market in Petoskey, uses his sign along U.S. 31 to advertise his in-store specials. But earlier this month, those passing by may have noticed not what the store had on sale, but what it didn't have. "No pink slime here," the sign read. And in came the customers. "We had tons of people coming in asking, 'What is pink slime,'" Schultz said. "When I explain it to them, they say, 'Oh, that's just gross.'" "We've probably gained at least a hundred new customers because of it."

Safeway, SUPERVALU and Food Lion announced today that they will no longer carry what the meat industry calls "lean finely textured beef," something the public has come to know as "pink slime." All three companies site customer concerns as one of the primary reasons for the change. "While the USDA and food industry experts agree that lean, finely textured beef is safe and wholesome, recent news stories have caused considerable consumer concern about this product. Safeway will no longer purchase ground beef containing lean, finely textured beef," the company said in a statement.

The absence of ground beef at lunch last week — at Brighton High and 43 other public schools here — could be explained by a peek into the freezer, where 21 boxes of ground beef products sat, cordoned off from the rest of the meat by a clinical-looking cover of white paper reading “Do not use.” This is the frozen mass at the center of growing public concern, stoked by news coverage and social media outrage, over so-called pink slime, the low-cost blend of ammonia-treated bits of cow.

At the end of last year, the news media reported on processed meat injected with ammonia and the trimmings previously used in pet food and other products not sold for human consumption. Read more in the New York Times article from December 30th here. With all the news about "pink slime" in the news lately, we are thankful to serve locally sourced and processed meat free of this nasty pink stuff here at Common Market.

Slaughter and processing of Common Market's ground beef is done by Smucker's Meats, a family-owned USDA inspected facility located in Mount Joy, PA. Smucker's is committed to working with producers to develop a sustainable local beef supply. When they process ground beef for Common Market, Smucker's uses only solid muscle meat and fat- no neck or trim, and definitely no "pink slime"!

In a concentrated industry where large processors have 80% of the business, Smucker's has found a niche to serve small farmers in Pennsylvania and Maryland that would usually have nowhere to process their animals. Providing a very important service to farmers and happy meat eaters alike!

If you were in at the leading edge like The Common Market of Philadelphia then you had a strong value statement and a tactical weapon against your competition. If you still haven't made a statement (or worse still aren't sure about your product) then you'd better hurry up because your defenses are down. The perception is you're selling a product that is perceived at best as inferior and by many people as inedible.

Latest News

You may have heard about KFC running out of chicken in the UK. Unlike Chipotle's earlier problems here in the US the concern wasn't food-safety, it was pure logistics. A new carrier (DHL) wasn't making the deliveries on time. That got me thinking about trucking here in the US and the shortage of truck drivers we are experiencing.